Edward Daniel Clarke, LL. D., an English traveller and mineralogist, born at Willingdon in Sussex, June 5, 1709, died in London, March 9, 1822. He was educated at Cambridge, published in 1793 travels in England, Whales, and Ireland, and afterward travelled on the continent as a tutor and travelling companion. In 1798 he was elected fellow of his college, and went to Cambridge to reside. The next year he set out as travelling companion to Mr. Cripps on a long and laborious tour through Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Finland, Russia, Tartary, Circassia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Austria, Germany, and France. This journey occupied 3 1/2 years, and he published the results in "Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa" (6 vols. 4to, 1810-'23; 11 vols. 8vo, 1816-20). On his return nearly 100 valuable classical manuscripts which he had obtained during his tour, among which was a very celebrated one of the complete works of Plato, were sold to the Bodleian library. He also placed in the vestibule of the university library at Cambridge a colossal statue of Ceres, which he had brought from Eleusis, and a number of ancient marbles from other parts of Greece, for which, as well as for his eminent attainments, the university conferred on him the degree of LL. D. He took orders in 1805, in 1807 commenced a course of lectures on mineralogy, and in 1808 became the first incumbent of the professorship of mineralogy at Cambridge. His experiments in analvsis of minerals by means of the oxyhv-drogen blowpipe were important.

His "Life and Remains" was published in 1824.